Special foods in Southern China during Spring Festival

• Source: Global Times
• [09:43 February 08 2010]
• Comments

People in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, like to cook vegetables with lucky sounding names like cabbage, as it is called yuan baicai in Chinese and “yuan” means being together. Shanghainese must cook a dish featuring egg rolls, because they are shaped like gold ingots. However, nearly every family around the country will have fish on the table, as yu in Chinese can also mean surplus, a symbol of having abundance in the next year.

Cabbage

In Jiangsu Province, Hangzhou and Shanghai, people like to stir-fry meat with bamboo shoots. In Hubei Province, the first dish served on New Year’s Day is chicken soup; in most places in Hunan Province, the first food on the first day of Chinese Lunar New Year is rice cake and people eat chicken, pork and fish on Chinese Lunar New Year Eve.

Egg roll